It’s that time of year again, the time for cleansing and new beginnings: spring!

With the new spring season underway there comes new emotions, new feelings, and new struggles. Everyone goes through something, and life is constantly hitting us with more and more obstacles that can be hard to deal with.

Being a teenager in high school is hard. We constantly go through changes and experiences that may be good and bad for us.

One thing that many teenagers experience and deal with a lot is anxiety, according to school psychologist Marina Brennan.

“[Students deal with] both academic, concern about grades, balancing school work with extracurricular activities, balancing a heavy academic load and social life, maintaining friendships, dealing with conflict among classmates,” Brennan said.

Society often times associates success and prosperity with students who balance good grades and extracurricular activities. On top of that, they can handle a triumphant social life. Speaking from personal experience, if I don’t have these things together, I feel like I’m failing at everything.
Often times, a person’s anxiety will start to take control of every part of their life.

“I often feel unmotivated and even hopeless on a normal basis. It causes me to feel almost empty, and I stop caring about things that used to be important to me. Or I don’t enjoy the things I used to love to do,” senior Kourtney Long said.

Things like anxiety, depression and sometimes even loving yourself can be very hard to deal with and resolve. There are times when an individual just wants to give up on everything. If you are one of those people, I have a few ways that you can cope with what you are going through.

First, get help. There are many people at H-F that are willing to help you! We have people from school psychologists to social workers that are willing to listen to you and find a resolution to your problem or problems.

Take it from Lauren White, a social worker here at H-F.

“ I always let students talk, cry, or express any emotion they are feeling. Sometimes just processing through situations and feelings can feel so relieving. I give advice to take care of yourself by filling your whole person,” White said.

Another piece of advice I would highly recommend is to keep good company. Many adults may have told you about this your whole life, but it is something that is very important and essential if you want to cleanse yourself of the negative energy.

“Dealing with making new friends is hard when going through [things] because not everyone understands what you are going through,” Long said.

If you surround yourself with positive people, they will inspire you, motivate you, and help you to do better and be a better version of yourself.

Here are some questions to ask yourself about the people around you: Do they make you feel like you have what it takes to reach your goals? Do they support you with your goals? Do they help you strive to do better?

The third (and probably most important) piece of advice I would give is to practice self-care and self-love.

Practicing means of self-care and self-love are extremely important but often overlooked by kids in high school.

However, the two are different in their own ways. Self-love has to do with appreciating yourself and taking what you go through, learning from your past and growing from your actions.

One key point of advice: know yourself. Be mindful of your emotions and your feelings and get to know and understand them. It doesn’t matter what others think of you, if you know yourself!

Another key point would be to set boundaries on yourself. If you have certain activities, people, or relationships in your life that are consuming your positive energy, prioritize your happiness and know when to cut it. It’s only harming you in the end!

Self-care doesn’t always have to be taking a long shower or applying a face mask. Self-care can be taking time out to meditate or pray, read a book, Netflix and chill with yourself, or doing whatever it is that makes you happy.

Think about these essential questions: What do you have or do in your life that makes you really proud? What are some positive things that have happened to you recently, or not recently, to make you happy? What are you passionate about?

Asking yourself any of these questions is a beginning on the road to self-love, self-care and ridding yourself of negative weight on your shoulders!